Freakonomics Book Report

When you look at my older sister you might think that she kind and helpful girl because the way she acts in public and helps my mom out. Also you might think that she is a kind sibling. But in reality that not who she is while she is home. When she is home she always on her phone and doesn’t really help with things and can be mean to my little brother. Even though this is a example of something that is good it's actually bad. In some situations bad can be good because the bad can help you get past things in your life or solve some things in your life. In the book freak the mighty by Rodman Philbrick give a great example of that.

The intended audience of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics is made up of middle class Americans and comprised of adults and teenagers with a basic education and a broad knowledge of a wide range of subjects. Since Levitt and Dubner reference a large variety of topics, it is imperative for the audience to also be familiar with a wide variety of subjects or at the very least to be aware of popular culture and government. For example, when Levitt and Dubner reference a Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, where a young woman named Norma McCorvey was “...the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit seeking to legalize abortion” they establish their audience as one that would be educated enough to know the fundamentals of some of the most important events in American history (Levitt and Dubner 5). By referencing the Roe v. Wade case, a court case which is generally considered to be common knowledge for Americans, Levitt and Dubner reveal that their audience must be comprised of

The author Steven Levitt studied economics at Harvard University and MIT. He is primarily known for his work in the field of crime. The title Freakonomics means a study of economics based on the principles of incentives. The title is related to the book since he emphasizes how incentives drive and affect people’s actions. Although this book does not have a single theme, the main focus of the book is a new way of interpreting the world using economic tools. He explores incentives, information asymmetry, conventional wisdom, crime and abortion, and parenting throughout the six chapters of the book.

Another theme presented in multiple articles was a rise in cheating. Source number one, “Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities”, believes that because the push to do well on standardized tests is such a priority, “some institutions consider cheating” (Concordia University). Source number two, “Is the Use of Standardized Test Improving Education in America,” disagrees, explaining that cheating by administrators and students is not an issue, and not a reason to terminate standardized testing. This source also clarifies that “[i]t is likely that some cheating occurs, but some people cheat on their tax returns also, and the solution is not to abolish taxation” (Standardized Tests - ProCon.org). Source number three, “Test Our Children Well”, proposes a solution that by using the “testing effect”, “teachers could develop new tests questions each week for each class…” (Emanuel 10) and by doing so, will eliminate the opportunity for student to cheat on exams.

The performance of a student in the educational system is revised through their assignments. Many students excel while others don't. A student is judged and ranked more on the work they produce rather than what they actually know. This is why many students decide to cheat. In the end it’s not about what they really know, but about what they make the instructor believe they know.

This essay is fairly accurate when it talks about how our school system has relied too heavily on test scores and they’ve made it almost all about memorizing. Most of the time people will memorize the information for the test and after the test they never end up using the information again because it’s not some we need in the real world. Especially after the invention of the internet there really isn’t any reason to have to memorize again since any question you could ever have could simply be answered by using the internet. The only part of this essay I don’t agree with is that the writer makes it sound like all schools today are focused on great test

Teachers strive for their students to score well because the score also reflects on their teaching. Teachers seem to no longer teach for students to learn material and retain knowledge but to “ace” tests. Some learn to teach according to the test. Students learn the information that is going to be on the test but do not necessarily fully understand the material they are learning. There are certain standards that have to be met with each test. In most states part of the scores reflect the

In chapter 3 in Freakonomics by Stevin Levitt and Stephen Dubner, it concentrates on conventional wisdom. The chapter begins by discussing about conventional wisdom, and how conventional can be wrong. Conventional wisdom was invented by John Kenneth Galbraith to explain generally acceptance by the public. It is furthered explained that conventional wisdom is associated with convenience. That many experts used it for their own agenda. But then explained how asking pointed questions can often overturn conventional wisdom. The authors provide some examples of when people have done some creative lying to draw attention. One of the examples was about getting people’s attention on how rape is a serious problem, it’s much more attention grabbing to tell people that it occurs in every one in three women, rather than the

Many, if not most, of the people in today's generation are constantly judged by others and even themselves based on what their identity comprises of. The concept of racial injustice and inequality among ethnic minorities constantly fills the media. Women's rights issues seem to arise rapidly whenever a single female is mistreated in the slightest way. The debate on homosexuality is also an enormous topic in our social lives today, with millions of supporters for it, but also millions against it. This internal segregation within our own human population is nothing new, since it has been continuing ever since verbal and written communication with each other has existed. All these components, and many more, are a huge part of what identifies a

In Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics, they use unconventional wisdom to explain certain events. They use very solid data in order to support their conclusions about certain events. However, some of their conclusions suffer from errors in reasoning, or rather, fallacies. Although they have done several different types of fallacies, the main one they’ve done is the either-or choice.

This book Freak The Mighty reminds me of another book Bridge to Terabithia Because it has a don't judge a book by its cover thing to one character. That Character is Leslie she is a new kid how meets Jessie in a race she was the only girl in that race and beat all of the boys so he thought she was a person who brags all day however he meets her and she is very creative and they go on many adventures.

​The field of economics is often distinguished as a field of studying financial trends and market advancements, but Freakonomics reveals how the tools used in economic research can be put to use to study the events and problems that our society encounter on a daily basis. Freakonomics presents a vivid display of how informal methods of data accumulation and examination are often necessary to have an appreciation of the world around us. Just knowing what to measure and how to measure data from our routine lives makes the complex world around us somewhat less problematic. Oftentimes, Levitt presents situations that challenge our prior beliefs and leaves the reader in a state of amazement. The situations in the chapters without no doubt demonstrate

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is a book that takes you through facts and statistics that seem reasonable and logical at the beginning but soon they dissect it and show you the true side of the statistic. The whole premise of the book is to show you the “hidden side of everything. (Cover page)” Like how dropping crime rate throughout the 90’s drastically dropped seemingly overnight. This drop was associated with better policing strategies, this idea is great for reassuring the public, but is it really true? Turns out it was probably closer linked to the legalizing of abortion. The authors of Freakonomics throughout the book think outside the box in order to show you

1.In the book, Freakonomics, the authors discuss about a group called the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was very popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the article “27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About The Black Panthers” by The Huffington Post, a group called the Black Panthers was also popular in the twentieth century. The Black Panthers differ from the KKK in many ways, for example the Black Panthers wore black leather jackets and black berets, opposed to the KKK white sheets and hoods. A major difference between the two group was that while the KKK was hunting down black people, the Black Panthers were trying to protect the black community.Another notable difference between the two groups is that the KKK was aided by the

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).